a. Field of the Invention
The instant invention relates to a vessel mooring apparatus. In particular, the instant invention relates to a mooring buoy including an assembly that automatically retracts a pendant line attached thereto when the pendant line is slack.
b. Background Art
A vessel mooring system generally includes four components: a mooring anchor, a mooring buoy, a connection between the mooring anchor and the mooring buoy, and a mooring pendant. The mooring anchor may be anything with sufficient weight to hold a moored vessel in place (e.g., an old engine block), but is typically an auger screwed into the water bottom or a mushroom anchor. Mooring buoys are often air-inflated PVC balls or conically shaped hard-shell foam-filled buoys. The mooring buoy functions as a floating platform to support the mooring anchor chain and as a platform to hold the mooring pendant for retrieval by a vessel using the mooring. The connection between the mooring anchor and the mooring buoy is often a metal chain.
The mooring pendant is a length of heavy line having one end connected to the mooring buoy and the other end available to connect to the vessel using the mooring. Often, when a vessel unmoors, the vessel's operator will simply toss the pendant line back into the water. Thus, over time, the pendant lines become coated with slime and other marine growth, such that, when the pendant line is brought aboard a vessel, the vessel and the vessel's operator may become quite dirty from handling the slimy pendant. It is also more difficult to retrieve a pendant line that is dangling in the water, as the free end of the pendant will likely be partially or totally beneath the surface of the water. In addition, a moored vessel can, with variations in current, wind, or waves, ride up on the mooring buoy, potentially damaging the hull of the moored vessel on the metal shackles used to attach the pendant line to the mooring buoy.